BookEinstein: A Sincere Promise to Nurture Ardent Readers and Creative Writers from the start

BookEinstein

“Our purpose lies in building a company for parents, founded by a parent, that can connect with them and help mitigate their concerns. We aim to nurture kids by making learning fun, fostering creativity, and indirectly improving their academics.”

Being a parent is more strenuous today, as a child’s cognitive development is being overshadowed by digital gadgets. Children are reluctant to indulge in reading books, either because they don’t have exposure to engaging content or because they are not habitual with it. Mrs. Smita Mehta Mandawat, a mother turned entrepreneur, saw the complexity of this problem. During her journey as a mother, she realized that good books and quality-driven reading materials for children aren’t abundantly available in India. Considering this market gap, she initially began by sourcing books from foreign publishers and authors and soon realized that this agenda needed to become bigger!

She curated BookEinstein as a children’s library in 2016 to inculcate the habit of reading in children. Since then, she has made dedicated efforts to convert this ambition into reality. Based in Mumbai, her company has collaborated with several top-tier schools and has played an influential role in setting up and running school libraries, book fairs, and after-school classes.

We at Prime Insights are extremely delighted with BookEinstein’s vision of shaping the minds of children right from an early age with a holistic approach. In a conversation with her, we explored many new facts about her journey so far and what challenges she had to face during the initial years of building her venture.

A Brief Overview of the Services

• The brand runs enrichment classes to nurture their minds under expert guidance from start to finish. This not only includes helping children read successfully but also building their confidence in pronunciation, vocabulary, and comprehension. The team works closely with parents to monitor every child’s progress. Each class is planned differently and taught by highly qualified teachers to ensure that children are learning from the best.
• BookEinstein’s Library offers an assorted collection of books that target developing children’s reading and vocabulary skills. The wide variety of books includes internationally acclaimed and award-winning books from the UK, best sellers, top international publishers, children’s favorite authors, and books that are difficult to find locally.

The Initial Road

When Mrs. Smita Mehta Mandawat started the library, she received immense support from the schools and parents, as each one of them was overjoyed with BookEinstein’s book collection. They did face challenges while starting with enrichment classes, and it took a significant amount of hard work to convince schools to understand the benefits of making their curriculum more robust.

But like it is said, “When you do something from the heart, it is reflected every single day, in every small detail.” BookEinstein showed unflinching faith in its vision and kept its values at the core of its actions. The entire team worked with the utmost transparency and won the hearts of their patrons. This automatically resulted in repeat sales, high referrals, and positive feedback. Parents were also happy, not “just satisfied” with the change they saw in their children—their inclination towards reading, taking more interest in books, not just reading a particular title because of peer pressure.

When schools witnessed how BookEinstein’s fun yet structured classes brought improvements in their students in terms of increased attention span, quicker comprehension, and higher grades, they also paved long-lasting relationships with the brand.

The Roots of Integrity

At BookEinstein, the model is built on collecting feedback through different mediums at every stage. Interactions with school authorities and parents give ample fuel to either keep moving forward on their efforts or go back to the drawing board to rethink the changes that need to be made. The brand enjoys an NPS (Net Promoter Score) of 8+ with an 80%+ renewal rate from parents and a 100% renewal rate from schools.

BookEinstein’s is rooted in making children develop a liking for reading and turning them into avid readers. In today’s digital world, it gets very difficult for parents to wean their children away from gadgets. But BookEinstein’s strategy is simple: keep the child engrossed so that neither reading nor learning becomes an overwhelming task.

The classes are conducted in small batches, which ensures that teachers accelerate the imagination of each child. Bridging gaps and complementing the school’s curriculum—all these have helped the team carve a niche in the hearts of customers. BookEinstein did not begin as a commercial enterprise but was born because of a growing concern among parents stemming from an issue: a lack of interesting, age-specific storybooks. So there was no customer acquisition cost (CAC), and the brand evolved simply through word-of-mouth publicity.

“Our brand connection is like glue. Schools and parents have become like family as they trust us to mold their students and children into independent thinkers with improved articulation and a fondness for books, building their book collections, etc. In a nutshell, our brand connection is the feeling of being on the same team, as we have garnered trust through honest conversations, personalized support, and genuine care. It is deeply satisfying when our partners, meaning parents and schools, rely on us for advice and not just as a service provider.”

Working on New Categories in the Future

BookEinstein has and will be introducing a lot of new courses combining critical thinking and reading. These courses help children improve their comprehension and analysis. Apart from this, the most prominent addition is expanding the brand’s physical presence in New Delhi. The Mumbai office is also being revamped for smoother operational procedures.

With the new office opening soon in Delhi, BookEinstein is now set to establish its footprint in other cities like Pune, Bengaluru, and Chennai. Shortly, the team also plans to form strategic partnerships to provide communication training to undergraduates and students who wish to pursue further studies abroad. This includes polishing student skillsets through interview preparation, boosting their oral and written communication abilities, building on their profile, and mentoring them like an image consultant.

Concluding Words

The conversation with Mrs. Smita Mehta Mandawat was nothing short of a delightful experience. Her journey of building a venture of her own despite being a mother gives us a clear picture of her relentless spirit and dedication. Even though her path was fraught with deep troughs and battles, she chose to confront the realism of entrepreneurship. She advises all young minds and new-age entrepreneurs to take calculated risks and not shy away from facing failures. In fact, she believes that failures are the best teachers!